


The Wolf Who Turned

by cupidsbow



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fairy Tales, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-08
Updated: 2012-09-08
Packaged: 2017-11-13 15:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cupidsbow/pseuds/cupidsbow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time there was a wolf who turned into a man, but not because of anything as simple as a kiss. A remix of <a href="http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/frog.html">The Frog Prince</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wolf Who Turned

**Author's Note:**

> Have you noticed that I always seem to end up writing fiction when I, a) get sick, and b) have marking to do?

Once upon a time there was a handsome young werewolf named Derek Hale. He was the new Alpha of the Hale pack, and while he was still green in the ways of leading, and perhaps a little better at being a wolf than a man, he tried his best to take care of his pack and the townspeople of Beacon Hills, just as his family had always done. 

As a new Alpha he faced many challenges, one of the first being to stop a kanima which was wreaking havoc in his territory. With the help of his Betas, Derek tracked the kanima through the woods and streets, past the Rec Centre and Library and into the local high school, until finally they had it trapped in the gymnasium.

The kanima, it turned out, was wily and cunning, and although Derek was brave and strong, he tended to be a little quick to act and a little slow to think. And so it was that the kanima hid out of sight in the rafters, and once Derek and the Betas split up to search the building, the kanima took its chance. It dropped on top of the Alpha without warning, and swiped him with its poison. The paralysis took hold quickly, but Derek managed to turn his fall into a roll before he was entirely immobile; he rolled and rolled as far as he could get from the kanima, only to end up rolling right into the water of the school's swimming pool.

On the one hand this was lucky, because the kanima had a terrible fear of water and so Derek was safe from its claws; but on the other hand a werewolf's magic does not include the ability to breathe through its skin like a frog, or through gills like a fish, and so the Alpha sank like a stone to the very bottom of the pool and knew that he would surely drown. 

Derek stared up through the water as he sank, seeing the light shimmering above him on the surface, and thought, _God, what a stupid death. But at least it's better than burning._

His chest was tight and his sight was beginning to tunnel when the head of a human boy appeared over the edge of the pool and stared down at him. As soon as he spotted Derek, the boy jumped into the pool and swam down towards him; he wrapped his arms around the werewolf's torso and with a few powerful kicks, he dragged Derek back up into the air.

"You idiot, Stiles," Derek said, in between gasping for air. "Why didn't you run when you had the chance?" What he thought was: _Goddammit. If we survive the kanima, I'm going to owe this stupid boy a life-debt. I don't have time for that!_

"Rude," the boy replied, looking rather put out, but continued to tread water and keep them both alive until the kanima gave up and left, probably on its way to seek other prey. Shortly afterwards, one of the Betas found them and helped them out of the pool.

Derek wasted no time; as soon as he could move under his own power again, he left with his Beta to continue chasing down the kanima. 

"You're welcome," Stiles called after him.

Derek paid no attention; he had wasted enough time already.

The next day, Derek was sitting at the traffic lights in his Camaro when he heard something approaching on the sidewalk: _sneeze, cough_ it went, and _cough, sneeze_. When Derek looked out the side window, he saw Stiles walking along on his way home from school, miserably sniffling into a handful of toilet paper. The werewolf turned back around and switched on the radio, even though all that was playing on the local station at that time of day was _The Best of the 80s_.

On the radio Hall and Oates sang, "Watch out boy, she'll chew you up," and Derek's grip tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles went white.

From the passenger seat, Isaac gave him a sidelong look, probably because he noticed the sudden _ki-kick_ of Derek's heart. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," said Derek.

"Oh, hey," said Erica from the back seat, "isn't that Stiles?" She pressed her nose to the glass, leaving behind a smudge. "He looks kind of sick."

"Ha," said Isaac. "Sucks to be human." 

The light finally changed to green, and Derek drove off. He glanced briefly in the rear-view mirror, checking for traffic, paying no attention to Stiles' slump-shouldered form growing smaller and smaller behind him.

If Derek's sister, or mother or grandmother had still been alive, at this point they would probably have said, "A life-debt is not optional, Derek; it must be paid. Go and check on the boy."

On the one hand, advice from dead people was the very worst kind of advice to receive, because it was impossible to argue with; but on the other (much more secretive) hand, deep in his heart of hearts Derek didn't really want to argue with their advice anyway.

Which was why at 11:34pm that evening, Derek finally admitted that he was tossing and turning rather than sleeping, rolled out of the rumpled mess he'd made of his bed, and crept off to the Sheriff's house. He climbed in the boy's bedroom window and found him curled in a ball on the bed, swaddled in blankets.

"Dude," the boy said, as Derek laid a hand on his burning forehead. "What are you doing here?"

"Don't call me dude," Derek growled, and went down to the kitchen to fetch soup and water and aspirin.

"Don't sit on my bed," the boy complained when Derek got back, and tried to kick at him through the blankets.

Derek ignored him and settled down on the edge of the bed with the tray of food on his knees. He pushed and tugged at the boy until he grudgingly lay propped up against the headboard, fever colouring his cheeks.

"Not hungry," Stiles whined when Derek offered up a soup-laden spoon; when the boy inevitably opened his mouth to complain some more, Derek slid the spoon inside. Stiles swallowed the mouthful down easily enough, licking his lips afterwards. 

Three mouthfuls later, he perked up enough to demand the spoon for himself. "Give me that. I'm not a child." 

Stiles' fingers slid over Derek's on the handle, warm and damp with sick-sweat, and the wolf inside Derek wanted to nose him all over and lick him clean. 

"Seriously." Stiles took possession of the spoon, and shoved Derek's nose away from his skin. "Who knows what wolf-germs you've already put all over the food. I don't need you breathing all over me too." 

Derek huffed discontentedly, but let the boy have his way.

When Stiles had eaten all he wanted, just a small puddle of soup left in the bottom of the bowl, Derek helped him to the bathroom, ignoring the indignant yelps the boy made as he wobbled along, unsteady without Derek's hand on his side. Stiles smelled like embarrassment and relief afterwards, complaining non-stop about invasions of his personal bubble. Back in the bedroom, Derek made him take two aspirin and lie back down.

"What are you doing?" Stiles demanded, eyes wide as he watched Derek toe off his shoes and shrug out of his jacket. "No! No, bad dog!" he said, as Derek slid on top of the blankets, stretching out by the boy's side. He smelled a little of fear, and a little of loneliness as he rolled away from Derek, putting a slice of space between them.

"Don't be an idiot," Derek said, impatiently. "You've got a temperature, and your phone is dead. I'm not leaving."

"Oh," Stiles said. The fear smell was fading, and so was the loneliness smell, and he snuggled back into the blankets. However, it was not in his nature to let anything go quietly, so he said, "What's wrong with the chair? Or the floor?"

"Shut up and go to sleep."

Stiles sighed the sigh of the hard done by, and turned over, wrapping himself more tightly in the blankets. "Stupid, over-protective creeper wolves."

The bare nape of the boy's neck ended up adjacent to Derek's nose, and he breathed in the scent of sleepy boy as the shadows in the room moved with the waxing moon, and the house creaked as it settled in the chill of the night. The boy snuffled and twitched, restless until Derek settled a hand on his blanket-swaddled back, and then everything was still and quiet and safe.

Just before the first light of dawn, Derek twitched awake to the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. He carefully rolled Stiles off his chest, reluctantly left the warmth of the bed, eased back into his discarded shoes and jacket, and silently made his way out of the window.

 _Debt paid_ , he thought to himself as he made his way back to his pack.

That happy delusion lasted a little over a week, until the next full moon. Derek found himself once more sleeping on the boy's bed, this time in his fur, still too injured to change back, but alert enough to keep one eye open all night. Waiting for an attack that didn't come. The boy's fingers never left his ruff, curled there as though it would keep them both safe, the stink of tears and pain still bitter on the collar of his t-shirt, the fresh bruises on his skin smudged almost to invisibility in the darkness.

"I like you like this," Stiles murmured deep in the night, half dreaming. "You have better manners, and you're so warm."

Derek wanted to lick him, then, saying without words the things he could never confess with a human mouth. Instead, he rested his head on Stiles' knees so that the boy wouldn't have to reach so far to tangle his fingers in fur. 

He left as the first hint of light touched the sky, changing just long enough to exit through the window, and then turning back into the wolf for the run to his pack.

The third time it happened -- Stiles saved his life again, and then he looked after the boy's hurts -- Derek thought: _Once is chance, twice coincidence, but three times is a pattern_. And the pattern was that Derek kept ending up here: pressed into the warmth of this boy's side, easing his pain, and keeping watch through the long reaches of the night. 

And as he lay in Stiles' too-soft bed for the third time (but not for the _last_ time, because this would happen _again, again, again_ ), with his nose pressed to the short burr of the boy's hair, Derek felt something tense and terrible untwist inside him. He hadn't known this kind of surety in a long time. His wolf liked being here, close to the boy, but this wasn't about pack. This was something else. Something human.

On the one hand, this realisation was terrifying, because he didn't trust humans, not any more; but on the other hand, it was _even more terrifying_ , because he was starting to _want_ to trust Stiles, and Derek didn't even know how to come to terms with that.

Stiles hummed contentedly in his sleep and snuggled closer. 

Derek could hear the steady counterpoint of their off-beat hearts, the already familiar sounds of the house settling and the scratching branches of the tree outside. He closed his eyes and kissed the hinge of Stiles' jaw, sweet and quick, the way he'd sometimes kissed Laura. Just because.

"Should stay for bre'fast," Stiles murmured without ever waking.

Maybe he would stay for breakfast tomorrow. Eat something nice for a change, find out what new werewolf-related indignity Stiles would complain about, eyes bright, hands waving. As Derek slid into asleep, he realised he was actually looking forward to waking up tomorrow. How strange.

Of course, tomorrow didn't come. 

In the early hours of the morning, they were woken by Stiles' phone and a call to take care of urgent werewolf business.

So instead of his half-imagined tomorrow, Derek ended up with _this day_ , this particular day, which included seeing Stiles standing in the line of fire of three bugnuts crazy Hunters. This day, in which Stiles put himself in the line of fire _on purpose_ , as part of some idiot, last-minute plan he'd dreamt up with Scott. 

Instead of breakfast, Derek got to clutch at his wolfsbane infected arm and watch Stiles nearly die -- so close to dying that Derek could taste ghost-fire on his tongue, smell the memory of smoke -- and as he watched he felt a swell of rage like he'd never felt before. In the past his anger had always been tempered by shock and grief and guilt, but this anger was pure and untempered. It was fanned by disappointment (because he'd wanted that fucking _tomorrow_ he'd barely even let himself think about, wanted it badly), and by the sudden horrible realisation that Stiles was both _too stupid to live_ , and half-way to being essential to Derek's survival. 

As soon as the crazy Hunters were contained by the Argents, the wolfsbane injuries were taken care of, and he was sure his Betas were safe, Derek loped to the Sheriff's house, broke in through Stiles' window, and waited silently in the dark. He pounced the moment the boy walked into the room: grabbed him, threw him against the door -- _Bang!_ Such a satisfying sound! -- and pinned him there with a hand to the chest. 

"What the hell was that," Derek snarled, not even trying to hold back his teeth.

Stiles' expression morphed from surprise to anger within a single heartbeat. "Seriously? We're back to this? What the hell, dude."

"Shut up! I told you to stay behind me."

Stiles scoffed. "I did stay behind you. Right up until you and Isaac were _shot_. After that, all bets were off. I'm not going to stand by and watch my friends die." He poked Derek in the chest. "And it's not fair to ask me to."

Derek shoved him harder against the door, but Stiles' heartbeat stayed steady, thrumming fearless against his palm. "And it's fair for us to watch you die instead?"

"You do realise I'm not actually dead? Because my awesome plan was awesome?" The little shit actually sounded smug about what he'd done.

Derek's anger spiked, like someone had shot wolfsbane straight into his brain. His hands itched with the need to shake some sense into Stiles, and for a moment he couldn't even speak, words jumping in his throat like frogs and toads and poison snakes, and when he finally opened his mouth what fell out was, "Every time you nearly die, I smell _smoke_." His throat hurt afterwards, like he'd been yelling.

Something strange was happening to Stiles' face, as though he didn't know how to feel what he was feeling. He stared at Derek, forehead creased, mouth dropped open, like Derek was some kind of puzzle he had no idea how to solve.

Closing his eyes, Derek pressed his face into Stiles' neck. He breathed in his scent, tainted with fear, and blood, and gun-powder and that impossible trace of smoke, and underneath that, boy and sweat and too much sugar. When he breathed out again it came out as a whine; low and pained and hopeless, like a wolf in a trap. Like an animal.

Stiles' hand rose, hesitated mid-air, before coming to rest on Derek's nape. He tangled his fingers in the coarse ruff prickling into existence at the back of Derek's head, combing through it greedily, as though skin-hungry for the feel of fur. 

"Okay," Stiles said, soft and low in Derek's ear, like an offer, or maybe a promise, like they could still wake up for a dozen, a hundred, a lifetime of tomorrows. "Shhh," he said, hand soothing through Derek's hair, somehow easing the knot in Derek's chest that was making it so hard to breathe. "It's going to be okay," he promised, as though he already knew that one day soon Derek was going to believe him.

* * *


End file.
